Reform
by Fallen Ark Angel
Summary: Bickslow's been a bit flaky recently and everyone leaves it up to Lisanna to set him straight. Which is only fair. They are dating. - One-shot


Lisanna's eyes lazily watched the seith's wooden babies danced around the table she was seated at, happily chatting nonsensically to one another as they enjoyed the warm day. Surrounding them were the Thunder Legion, their papa grumbling slightly as he was scolded by Freed over something with Evergreen sneering behind her hand fan all the while. Lisanna used to feel out of place when she sat at the table in these sorts of moments. She was, after all. These conversations were meant for no ears other than the three assembled before her, but over time, they seemed less and less to care what she heard and what she didn't.

Bickslow would only relaying it all back to her anyways. With it slanted in his favor, of course.

"I'm serious, Lissy," he'd say, tongue flapping, waving his guild mark with pride, "they give me no respect. When all I do is exhibit the upmost for them. Ridiculous. I always take their feelings into considerations. But do they mine? No."

This was his speech once after getting griped at for, once more, oversleeping and skipping out on practice after staying out the night before with Lisanna who had no real drive or goals, really, other than to live her best life (edging on her twenties, mostly consisted of partying) and saw it fit still to stay out all night, hanging out with Natsu and Happy. Goofing off. Bickslow though had drive and momentum and something to work towards.

Before.

Now he seemed content to bum around with Lisanna and experience all the things she thought she'd never get to have. Which was fine.

Except for the fact that it did nothing to instill trust and respect from his teammates.

Lisanna saw through him, when he tried to paint the others as the monsters who mostly just seemed to want reliability out of him. She got little of it either, interestingly enough, as rather than shifting it to her, he seemed to just slowly lose it, the longer they dated.

It felt less like she was changing the seith to suit her needs and more like he was just changing to benefit his own while using her as a scapegoat.

"Maybe I should break up with him," she mused to Mira once, softly, as if testing the waters. Bickslow and his only two real friends were on the outs, once more, over him ditching out on too many jobs to just hang around with Lisanna who, short of pulling some shifts here or there at the bar, was kind of just not feeling jobs, recently, and didn't feel much up for them. "Do...do you think?"

"Mmmm," Mirajane hummed as they stood in the Strauss backyard, pulling laundry down off the line. Well, Mirajane was. Lisanna was mostly bemoaning her own life. Which was fine. Mira was always just glad to have her sister around. She always would. "I mean, it's really not your fault, is it? That he's, what? Skipping out on the others? You're not asking him to ditch his friends, are you?"

"Of course not. But-"

"You could encourage him," her sister suggested with a grin. "To be better. Laxus tells me he's a bit of a mope, recently. And a drunk. And-"

"And," the slayer called from the back porch where he was watching Mira pull down the laundry, his laundry, which he wanted her to do for him after returning from a grueling S-Class job. He was seated in a patio chair back there, feet propped up on the railing around the porch as Mira's mangy mutt sat at his feet, not bothered one bit by the cigar the man was smoking. The demon said he couldn't in the house, so this was his only option. Other than, you know, just not. Which was hardly an option at all and he was very upset when she suggested it. Fuckin' demon. "A louse. He's also gotten less funny since you guys started dating. You're turning him into a drunk. Break up with him. Now. Lisanna. Date Freed."

"What?" Mirajane frowned over at him. "Dragon, Freed's not interested in Lisanna. At all. And she's not him."

The perfect crime.

"All," Laxus grumbled who'd more than tired of thinking about just what Lisanna and Bickslow got up to when they were spending their days getting so drunk and stoned back at his apartment, "the better."

Still, something had to be done about the current state of affairs. Lisanna didn't want to break up with Bickslow, not at all. She was having fun with him. And he was with her. It was just that their fun was beginning to intercede so much on his life, his real, work related life, and she wasn't oblivious to it. No. Lisanna wasn't aloof or only out for herself. She did want Bickslow to continue to grow as a mage. To prosper. All that. They were friends, really, underneath everything else they'd begun to become in recent times. She just...didn't really like having to spend her time worrying about the well-being of someone who should be more than able to do that.

"It's part of a relationship," Mirajane told her another time, when she griped a bit about this. They were in the kitchen, preparing dinner. Well, Mira was chopping vegetables while Lisanna mostly pretended to debate helping (she definitely wasn't). "And have you considered he can't? You know? Look after himself? Maybe something happened that has nothing to do with you. He has a quite sharp personality change of late-"

"Nothing happened to him," Laxus griped from the living where he was reclining in the big chair, glancing over the newspaper as Mirajane's gross stupid dog sat at his feet and no, Laxus hadn't brought him that new squeaky toy he was annoying chewing on, he'd just found it and happened to give it to the dog, so there. "He's just a punk. You know, he told Freed that he was going to meet up with him, yesterday, to discuss the upcoming job, and what'd he do? Come late. What a fucking ass. You're fucking a fucking ass, Lisanna, just so you know."

"My sister is not," Mira complained right back, glaring at the wall that separated the kitchen and living room of the tiny Strauss home. The walls were so thin that she was sure the slayer could feel her gaze, "Fucking anything. Dragon."

Well…

Lisanna only sighed though. Her sister was right. Somewhat, at least. Like normal. Whether she liked it or not, Lisanna did care about Bickslow. A lot. And that was new to her, to care about someone in this sort of way. She'd never had a boyfriend before, not really, and that was what Bickslow felt like. His well-being was his own concern, of course, but she also felt a strong desire to be sure of him. To know that he was, at least, attempting to be a good person.

"I'm not a good person, is all," he informed her more than once. "At least not one without a struggle. A dark knight. A begotten hero. All that, yeah, Lissy? You understand?"

Sort of. Being a dark knight mostly seemed to just mean he could act like an asshole when he was drunk but still be a good guy because he deemed himself one. Except for when he didn't.

She felt like he was though. A good person. It was pretty obvious. Being a jerk at times hardly made someone not good. No. Bickslow was just...complex. Complicated. When you really looked at it. On the surface though, which they skated on for the most part, he was just someone who was looking for a good time and, yeah, she was finding that was all she wanted too. Perhaps a bit darker take on the sort of fun she used to fill her days with, when she spent more time around the hall and had a safer sense of boundaries, but where had that safety gotten her? Killed, just about. If you could die doing the right thing, why not at least taste the wrong sometimes?

"Do not taste," Laxus growled once when she found herself alone in a room with him rather than her sister, "Bickslow. That's sick. This is sick. Stop talking to me. I'm busy."

"You're playing with the dog."

"I am not," he growled some more, "playing with this stupid dog."

He was playing with the stupid dog.

Lisanna had come into her sister's room that afternoon hoping to find the off Mirajane there to give her guidance, but instead, she just found the slayer with his headphones in, lazily playing a game of tug-of-war with a pull rope with Mirajane's equally as lazy old dog on her bed. For a second, Laxus and Lisanna only stared at one another, as if calling each other's bluff, but Mira was in the adjoining bathroom so, apparently, if she needed immediate help, he was the only taker.

"Anyways," the youngest Strauss sibling went on as she stood there watching the slayer definitely play with the dog, "I just mean that, like, Bickslow isn't the best, fine, sure, but does that make him the worst? No."

"For you? Yeah, he is." Laxus was tired of constantly having to reiterate this. "Why are you even asking me about all this? Huh? You know how I feel about your relationship. It's horrible."

"How can you say that? When it makes both of us happy?"

Because it made him miserable. Very miserable. He'd been dating Mira for all of two years then and had known Lisanna for all of a late more. She was still a kid to him. Not some yahoo who thought that dating Bickslow of all people was a good idea. It really ticked him off, the idea of them together.

"Because I don't care about your happiness," said the man who would still deny the fact he was very clearly playing, still, with the dog. "Either of you."

"You're such a liar."

"Am not."

"You're one of Bickslow's closest friends," Lisanna pointed out. "How could you not care about-"

"I am no one's friend." Except the demon and her dog. Err, definitely not the dog. "The only friends he has that you can go to are the ones that he's fucking over because of you. Forty minutes. In the rain. He made Freed wait. Imagine it. Imagine sticking up for such an asshole. Imagine waiting for such an asshole."

"But you're definitely not friends with Freed, right?" Lisanna prompted. "Even though you're sitting here going on and on about him-"

"Stop," Laxus order simply, "dating Bickslow. Then he'll go back to normal."

"But I don't want him to go back to normal."

"You're the kind of girlfriend that friends dread."

"How would you know? Huh? If you have no friends?"

He was glaring then, darkly, and even let that mangy old mutt win their game of tug-of-war.

"Do," he ordered once more, "the right thing, Lisanna."

"So you're telling me that if Mira started flaking on all her friends for you, stopped showing up to work for you, that you would break up with her?"

He laughed. The dog, who'd never seen this, barked in reply.

"As if." Laxus was just as quickly snorting. "That's the dream. I'd move her far away from you freaks and never let her come back."

"I… Then what's your argument?"

"Mira and I are in love." He was pretty comfortable with this statement in those days. Just not any declarations to that stupid dog of hers. "You and Bickslow are in an endless cycle of nonsensical idiocy. It will never get any better. It will just stay the same. There's nothing better for either of you to be found in one another. Your relationship is a joke." Just as quickly though, his glare was gone and he was picking up his end of the rope once more, exciting the old mutt. "Now, if you would like for me to set you up with someone sensible or better yet, point you in the direction of a monastery-"

"You're not funny."

"Nether is your joke of a relation-"

"Dragon, are you being a bully?" Mira's head poked out of the bathroom door then, frowning over at them. "Because it sounds like you're being a bully."

"I'm offerin'," he grumbled, "guidance."

"Well, stop it. Behave."

This meant that it was time to put his headphones back in for the slayer and forget the entire thing, but it wasn't that easy for Lisanna. She knew that their relationship was, ultimately, the cause for the changes in the seith, but she never thought that someone would actually levy the blame at it. At her. While she knew Laxus was being his usual overly dramatic self, it really bugged her that Freed and Ever (mostly Freed; Ever didn't seem to like anyone...other than Elf...sometimes…) might be upset with her over the entire thing, rather than just their flaky friend.

And was she to blame?

"No," Freed sighed.

"Yes," Ever hissed.

She met them at the guildhall one day, when Bickslow wasn't around. He was actually busy sleeping off a hangover and while she was supposed to be working an early shift up at the guildhall, but when she saw the other two Thunder Legion members all alone, well, it wouldn't hurt to shirk those just a bit. Would it?

"Ever," Freed sighed once more, though mostly, he was annoyed that his planning time was being interrupted for such foolishness. At the moment, he had a map spread across the table and was trying to logically figure how they were going to snag two jobs he wanted from the board and travel to each location realistically in a time period that would make sense. It wouldn't take them long to knock out the first job, but it was further away, and that complicated things a bit. "Honestly, Lisanna, what you and Bickslow do is none of our business."

"Yes, it is." Evergreen wasn't busy with maps or planning. No. She had been counting the minutes until Elfman showed up so that she could begin looking super busyw ith those things, but for the moment, only fanned herself in annoyance that he was making her wait so long. "It's more our business than anyone else's."

"Ever-"

"No, Freed, I'm serious." And she was. Enough so that she dropped her hand fan into her lap and stared full on across the table at the youngest Strauss sibling. "I don't give a shit when Bickslow stays out all night drinking, when he sleeps with questionable women, or when he's just an overall drag to be with."

"Wait, am I the questionable one?" Lisanna cocked her head to the side. "Or-"

"But," Ever continued on, "when he makes me look like a fool, waiting around on him, when he ditches out on practices and jeopardizes us out on jobs, that's what gets on my nerves, Lisanna. That's what bothers me. If I was with a man who was completely ignoring his duties, even just to be with me, well, I certainly would not want to be with him. Nor would I consider him a man."

"And we all know," Freed remarked as he glanced over at his friend with a knowing smile, "that you must have a man, Ever."

"I do not know what you are implying-"

"I believe," Freed insisted, "that you do."

They had a weird glare going on then and Lisanna was rare to hear the rune mage so jovial, but when he got to digging at someone, he really could burrow his jabs in there.

"Anyways," Ever started again, looking once more to Lisanna. "You can do as you please. I'm sure you intend to. But if it comes down to who I hold responsible for Bickslow and his actions, realize it is you."

Lisanna blinked, looked to Freed, but the rune mage could only shrug.

"Ever," he told the young woman, "has a hard time finding faults in herself. The same could be said for her friends."

"I'm find many faults in you right now," the woman of stone retorted, but Lisanna just glanced between them.

"I guess I've just been a bit worried, is all," she said slowly as the pair sent one another glares. "About him. Bickslow. I really like, like, a lot, and I think he really likes me too. But I'm kind of worried about how he's behaving recently. I know I should just, like, tell him, right? To just go out on his jobs, make sure he keeps his appointments, not stay out all night, but… It's selfish, I guess, to let him waste all his time with me when he has so many other things that he needs to be doing. Important things. Thanks, guys, for your help."

"Eh?" Freed frowned over at her as he'd hardly heard a word. "Lisanna? Did you say-"

"What," Evergreen complained with a glare, "are you still doing here?"

They were right. What was she still doing there? When she had a seith to go confront? After, you know, pretending to work a shift.

As she rose though, Laxus came over, originally to gripe at Lisanna about her sister not being around (how was he supposed to get off to a good morning if the demon wasn't there to complain about his early hour drinking and smoking?), but had caught wind of what was going down and was not pleased. At all.

"Did you morons," he growled at his two bodyguards as she walked off, "tell her to break up with him? Huh?"

"Yes," Ever said with a glare after the woman.

"No," Freed said with a sigh as his eyes only fell back to his map.

Lisanna just ignored them though, finally heading back into the kitchen to get started on the breakfast orders. Her mind was lost in thought then though and, when Mira finally got int hat day, she begged for a few hours off early (try a lot hours off), to go deal with what was waiting for her at the seith's apartment.

"I guess you can," Mirajane remarked as she stood before Laxus' table. As the slayer readied himself for a kiss to the cheek though, the woman only reached over to snatch his cigar from his mouth.

"Demon," he growled.

"It's gross," she replied simply, snubbing the cigar out on the table.

"IT's a bar! Everyone here smokes!"

"I'm not kissing everyone, now am I?"

She had a point.

Still, Laxus only glared at Lisanna as he asked, "What are you going to Bickslow's to talk about? Huh? Let him down easy? Well, do it quick. I need him to come training with me tomorrow. Don't need some weepy, whiny little shit all heartbroken. Understand?"

"You're not funny," Lisanna insisted as, sitting up taller as the demon finally pressed her lips to his cheek, the slayer snorted.

"I'm," he told her with confidence, "hilarious."

"You are, dragon," Mira agreed with a pat on the head and they were so gross to be around, when they were like that.

"Grosser," Bickslow whispered from his drunken slumber as she relayed to him as she sat there, on his filthy apartment floor, knees to her chest.

She'd never had one before. A boyfriend. She hadn't been sure how to tell him about what was bothering her. Bothering him, really, which in turn was bothering her. So she did it how she would a friend. If Lucy or Levy were giving her a hard time, if Natsu was being an ass, if Elfman was getting on her nerves, she'd just tell them what was going on.

Should it not be the same in a relationship?

"Grossest," Lisanna finished, just as she did all her worries and fears over what was going on with them. It felt better, even, just in her chest, to have it all off there. "But you get it, right? Bicks? I just… I don't wanna break up."

"Me neither."

"I just want to… I like hanging out. A lot. A bunch. But you can't do that, you know? Treat the others like trash. They're your friends. You know?"

He said nothing then and she just sighed, shaking her head a bit.

"Why?" she asked then, voice barely a whisper as she sat there, mostly in the dark as the man kept blankets over his windows. Even blinds weren't enough to keep the light out. He liked it that way. Black as night.

"The exact opposite," he told her, that first day she came over, "of how I take my coffee."

Which got at least half a dispenser of sugar dumped in. At least.

But it suited them, usually. The darkness. It made for excellent movie lacrima quality, even during daylight hours. Not to mention it was pretty cool, when he lit up, and his babies would float about in the smoke rings, eyes glowing green. Homes all had their own atmospheres. Ambiances. And his fit the seith and his quirks perfectly.

He grunted, finally, Bickslow did, as if questioningly, and she tried again.

"Why are you acting like such a flake recently? Laxus is getting the most upset, I think because he just hates us together, but maybe also because you're disappointing him? I don't wanna pry, but… Why, Bickslow?"

He was slow as he shoved up, and even in the darkness, she could tell he really didn't want to. Still, blinking heavily, he took in a deep yawn before shifting to sit back on his butt, right beside her, in the mess of an apartment. His babies laid neatly though, across the coffee table, dormant. It was hard not to take notice of the silence this caused.

It was always so weird when they weren't just floating about, nonsensical noises and all.

"S'not your fault, kid," he assured her, voice a bit rough though the day was only continuing to get later. "You know."

"I know," she swallowed because yea, deep down, she did. She ahd. The whole time. "But-"

"It's mine." He paused then, thinking, before saying, "I just… Who wants to hang around someone always gone? Always trainin'? Who can't pull all nighters and drunk until the sun comes up? That doesn't wanna goof off in that weird place out in the woods that you and your cat and Salamander friend like to chill at-"

"Um, that's their house. And it's in better shape than your apartment."

Debatable.

"I just," he whispered, "want to feel too old. For you. For everything. I feel a lot older than I am. You know? We were so fucking serious about our magic. Jobs. Back then. When we were just entering our twenties. Now I'm halfway done with them and I'm just blown out, I guess, on 'em. Jobs. Training. Magic. I just wanna hang out. Kill time. More time. To only feel older. A vicious cycle, eh?"

"You're only, like, two years older than me."

"Four."

"Ew."

"Lisanna-"

"What's it like to almost be twenty-five?" She hummed as she pondered. "That's, like, almost thirty. Is Laxus thirty? Do you know how old he is? And when you add in the seven years we were- You guys are super old. So gross."

"Grosser."

"Grossest."

She fell against him then, resting up against the shoulder of the man, as she whispered, "It's okay, you know? To not wanna be so serious about your magic? It's still your job or whatever, but other than when you have to go out on jobs, you don't...have to. You know?"

"I know."

"But you can't make plans with your friends and then ditch them. And let people think it's my fault."

"Who's blamin' ya?"

"Mostly Ever, I guess."

"Evergreen would blame ya for anything that goes wrong."

Well? Who could blame her? It all was Lisanna's fault. Or anyone Evergreen deemed in that moment as a rival.

"And Laxus wants me to date Freed."

He considered this in silence, the seith did, before shrugging some as he said, "You can, I guess. If you really wanna. He's younger than me, anyways."

"By, like, what? A few months?"

"He won't ever flake out on nobody, either, which seems pretty big to ya."

"Bickslow-"

"Boss told me," he informed her then with a shake of his head, "that I'm bad for you."

"No."

"Uh, yeah, Lisanna, that's what he said."

"That's not what I meant."

He knew.

"You're not bad for me," she said. And then, louder a bit, as if to reassure them both, she said, "You're not. Honest. I was doing this all before you. Well, most of it, I guess, but… I just want to live, Bickslow. You know? Really live. Really experience things. Stuff I wouldn't have before. If I die-"

"Don't talk about that."

But she had to.

"If I do," she insisted, "then I want to know that I got everything out the way. Or at least most of it. Had fun. I mean, I did have fun, I guess, before all that happened, but it was a different kind. A reserved kind. I wanna just have complete freedom. I've had complete freedom, for awhile now. And I'm enjoying it. If I'm not hurting anyone, why should I feel bad about it?"

"Feel the same way."

"You are hurting people," she pointed out. "By not showing up. Which is such a dick thing to do."

"I… It's just hard, is all, Lissy." He looked down at where she rested against him. "To tell them that. That I don't wanna go out on a job. Or be at our weekly training session. Meet up to talk about plans. And maps. Freed and his fucking maps. I'm just not in that headspace right now, but if I told them that-"

"It's better," she reaffirmed, "for you to just do it. No matter what happens because you did it, it's better than to not and make them wait on you. Make them lose faith in you. If you want something different, say it. Don't make other people think that you're still on the same wavelength as them when you've left it. You know?"

Neither spoke then and the seith wrapped his arms around her shoulders then, pulling the woman close. For awhile, they were content that way.

"I'll get back to it eventually," he added though, just as she started to lull off against his shoulder. "Being super serious about it. Magic. Work. Trainin'. I gotta get to S-Class, eventually, you know."

"I will too," Lisanna insisted. "Maybe not, like, S-Class, but I'll want to be serious too. You know? Full time. You'll never see me."

"Not if you never see me first."

This hung between them and it didn't feel like too good a place to stop things. So they didn't. Instead, Bickslow added, "By thirty. At least."

"Not when you turn thirty though," she was quick to add. "That's only, like, what? Half a year, was it?"

"Ya cut me deep, Lissy."

Still, she shut her eyes as she said, "Treat your friends better, Bickslow."

"Bossin' me around, eh?"

"Please?"

He nodded some and, that time, his babies arose from their place on the table and they hung out for awhile before eventually arriving at the guildhall together. This was annoying to Laxus, who became very focused on glaring down at his beer.

Lisanna left him though, she did Bickslow, letting him head over to Evergreen and Freed. They needed, after all, to have a talk. Natsu and Happy were there, anyways, for her to goof off with while Mirajane debated whether or not she should remind her sister she, technically, could clock back in and help out some. She was scheduled for that hour, anyways, before she'd taken off.

"This is very disappointing," Freed sighed, over at the Thunder Legion's table, "Bickslow, but I am glad that you have found within yourself the courage to be upfront about your feelings. Yes. Friends should never keep-"

"Yeah, okay, whatever." Evergreen had to move things right along then as super late (for something she'd never even told him about…), Elfman strolled through the guildhall. It was time for her to begin ignoring him. But if it looked like she was just having a conversation with Bickslow and Freed, it wouldn't be blatant enough for the big oaf to notice. And she needed him to notice this. "You won't be on jobs that much anymore. Who cares? Go sleep with stupid Lisanna, Bickslow. Who even gives a shit?"

Freed blinked at her language, but Bickslow only wagged his tongue.

"To the original Strauss fucker," he said with a wink, "I'll take that as an endorsement."

Things would stabilize from there (though, that specific day, Ever called all out war on Bickslow and it took freed a bit to calm them both back down) and, slowly, it even became comfortable. Lisanna didn't feel so new and fresh about her relationship and the nerves she once had about her standing with both Freed and Ever now that she was dating their friend faded.

Nothing much had changed.

Except, well, as she sat around at the table, mediating a bit where Freed failed to be able to, between Evergreen and her boyfriend (they seemed to have as many fall outs as an oak had leaves), but mostly watching the seith's babies float about, Lisanna found her eyes drifting over to the bar where Laxus was quickly downing a mug of ale. Usually Mira would gripe when he slammed drinks in such a way, but she said nothing then as he tipped her with a kiss and prepped to leave.

"Where are yo going? Laxus?" Lisanna teased as he passed the table because she knew, oh, she knew, but she wanted to hear him say it.

"Dog's sick," he grumbled as he passed. He had to answer when the demon's siblings spoke to him. It was a rule. She'd made that very clear. With Elfman, the words he said were usually much harsher, but for Lisanna? "You know that."

She knew that.

"But what are you-"

"He needs his afternoon shot."

That broke the stalemate between Ever and Bickslow as they both took to snickering, softly, while Freed bemoaned his fallen idol. Laxus just glared though, at all of them, and then back at the demon, muttering something about how the woman was makin' him, was all, but it was useless. Futile.

They all knew the truth.

Laxus loved a dog.

And a demon.

But Lisanna loved a seith and, no matter how many ways this got under the dragon's skin, he'd just have to get over it.


End file.
